Friday Prayer

 

God, You are known by many names and in a multitude of ways.  You are Creator.  You are Composure and Conductor.  You are Editor and Evoker.  You are Provider and Provoker.   You are Love and Grace who continues to expand beyond the horizons of our souls.  Just as You are many, but One, so are we, each of us, made in Your image.  We wear different hats or masks or ways of showing up in the world.  If this is true about us, so may we also realize and recognize that it is true of others ~ both the people we love and the ones who are so creative in annoying us (I mean, they are always coming up with new ways to push our buttons ~ I marvel at the mastery some people have at getting a rise out of me).  As Paul once said, we look at the mirror of life dimly.  If we do not see ourselves clearly, how can we see another?  Get out the Windex on the mirrors of our life, O God.  Help us reflect on the stories we tell ourselves about our life and how that is impacting and influencing how we see/respond/say to others.  Storytelling, shaping, sharing God, call us back to the narrative of Your liberating love that is good news of great joy not just for us, but for all the world.  And may each of us love to tell and live that story this day and in the days to come.  Amen.  

Rewind the Tape

 

Allison Fallon encourages each of us to write our story to see how God’s threads that are woven into our life.  All humans are meaning making machines.  Fallon says at some point we ask, what is the meaning of life? What role do I play?  Is there a God and what is God’s work in all this?  What is true and what responsibilities are mine?  What can I learn?  When we write our story of life, perhaps not because it will become a best seller and win rave reviews by all the critics, what we are doing is listening to our life ~ which is how God shows up.  We are, as William Ury says, “getting to the balcony of our life to get some perspective.”  We live in a world that is constantly reacting, trying to get the first hot take on the current events as they unfold.  And if we are wrong, no worries, we will just deny and deflect that we said what we said.  We need balcony time to reflect on all the stimuli that cause synapses in our brain to fire without ceasing ~ because synapses that fire together wire together.  So, if our natural, normal response is to always see threats…that is what we will always see.  Today, I invite you to breathe and be, rewind the VHS tape of this week and look one moment from Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.  Could have been a meeting or a conversation.  I invite you to do one that does NOT cause your blood pressure to rise, but rather is neutral or leaning toward heartwarming.

 

Who was in the room with you? 

What as the vibe, temperature in the room (both literally and metaphorically)

Any smells that you remember?

Any sensations that you recall?

Describe the setting and scene in vivid and vibrant technicolor!

 

What did you feel, think, and say?  Try to be an observer here.  Turn off the inner commentary critic that wants to point out all the flubs and foibles and faults.  Just describe.

 

What do you think the other person or people felt, thought, said?  Note, that we do not know why someone did what they did, ever.  Because truthfully, we don’t know why we do what we do.  As Justin McRoberts says, may I cease to be annoyed that others are not as I wish they were, since I am not as I wish I was. 

 

Hold your insights as we continue to explore how the atoms of energy that bounce around inside us interact with the atoms of energy that are at work outside of us, knowing that there is more mystery than we will ever solve in life, even if we evoke our inner-Sherlock Holmes meets Scooby Doo.  Amen

Cookie Recipe of Life

 

Last week, we explored your first job as well as the experiences and encounters that are part of the book of your life.  We acknowledged that no one is an isolated, individual island.  You were not born in a vacuum.  The “you” that reflects in the mirror each morning is a compilation and amalgamation of your family, friends, and everything else that you carry in the invisible luggage of your life.  Yes, we all want to be unique individuals, but even if you were Tarzan raised alone in the jungle, you would have been nurtured and nourished by the berries you ate, the dirt the soles of your feet touched, and the other creatures who called that space home.  We are all a messy mixture ~ like the flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and baking soda, and chocolate chips that goes into the cookie recipe of your life. 

 

I invite you this morning to consider who are some of the people from the past who formed and fashioned your life.  This could be family, friends, college roommates, colleagues at your first job where you slogged through long hours, pew mates you sat alongside in church over the years.  Write down the names of people whose faces you still see in the family album of your life.

 

Next, think about people today whose threads of their life are twisted and tangled with yours.  Family, friends you go to the theater with, serve on committees with, sing along side, and share meals on Friday nights.

 

Finally, are there people who you prefer not to interact with?  Are there people you’ve pushed to the margins of your life, praying they will just go away?  Note that Saul thought that the way to “win” at life was to defeat or even destroy his enemies.  We still turn to this “wisdom” in our life.  We think we can kill our way to peace, that if they win, we lose ~ that just the way life goes.  But what if the story is not that simple?  What if the story is contradictory and complex and incomprehensible?  There is that wonderful wisdom in African of ubuntu – I am only because we are.  And the “we” there is more inclusive and embracing than you or I could ever imagine.  The “we” is larger than any circle we can draw or define in our life.  The “we” keeps expanding beyond the horizons we can control.  Name the “we”, the tribe, the people who are like a fountain filling your life.  Name the “we” the people who push your buttons and drain your life.  Name the “we” who you don’t even know exists in the 8 billion who call this planet home (the truth is, you really don’t know many of that 8 billion at all, despite the number of friends on Facebook!).  I am because we are.  Or as Jesus said, “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and whole self…and love your neighbor as you love yourself.”  If we can direct our energy and effort those embracing and embodying those words today, by God’s grace, it will be enough.  Amen.

Summer Reflection ~ Who we pass on the roads of life

 

As we are prayerfully pondering our friendships and family and the people we encounter ~ some without really noticing because we are too busy scrolling our smartphone for the latest notifications ~ here is an insightful/inspirational blog post from Seth Godin.  Godin writes,

 

Last week, I passed 800 people as I walked my way through New York.

I decided to look at the folks I was walking near.

Of those 800 people, not one was as conventionally attractive as a movie star. Few looked like the images I saw on the billboards I passed. Most wouldn’t be cast in a commercial. Perhaps 40 went to a famous college, maybe 10 played competitive sports. All of them were kinder and wiser than the typical TV character and cared very much about something important.

They were older and younger than the average ‘target market’ for most products. Some carried canes, wore glasses, or had hearing aids. A few were in wheelchairs. A bunch could run far faster than I can, and every one of them knew about things I’ve never even thought about.

If we zoom out and imagine passing 800 randomly chosen people from around the world, we see even more of what it means to be on this planet. Of those 800, fewer than 300 have ever been on an airplane. Half are smarter than average. 200 speak a little English. 50 make just a few dollars a day. Four or five live in bondage. Very few of them have as big an impact on the climate as you and I, and more than 600 of them are very concerned about what’s happening to the world around us.

For a long time, scaled consumer marketing has created status roles where none used to exist, and amplified division and class as a way to create insufficiency and generate sales.

But what we see when we look at the media or at a stack of resumes doesn’t accurately represent the world as it is.

We are all weird, and that’s okay.

 

I love that last line, “We are all weird”.  We are all uniquely and beautifully made AND we all share 99% of the same DNA.  Hold that tension.  We are the same AND different.  We are diverse and intimately interconnected.  Continue to consider some of the friends and family in your life. 

 

Who makes your heart sing?

Who makes you laugh?

Who can you talk for hours with day after day?

Who can you call, and even though you hadn’t spoken in six months, you pick up right where you left off?

Who annoys you, pushes the nuclear codes of your emotions, and causes the tiny vein in your neck to pulse?

Who do you prefer to slam shut the door of your life in the face of (as Peter could have done to Cornelius’ entourage)?

Who do you not notice because their face is a blur amid the busyness of our life?

 

Continue to consider prayerfully the ways your life is connected to others in the world.  May the above questions awaken you to God’s movement this day.

Summer Reflections on Acts ~ Where We've Been

 

Rewind and review with the passages from the sermon series on Acts that we have heard so far.  You heard how the early followers of the Way (of Jesus) held all things in common, broke bread together (perhaps on their knees – insert that Spiritual here), shared their lives with glad and generous hearts, and praised God (Acts 2:43-47).   Where and with whom are you sharing your life with a glad and generous heart right now?

Then we heard about the Beloved of God who sat by the Beautiful Gate encountered and interacted with Peter and John who asked the Beloved to look at them (Acts 3:4).  Where and with whom did you look in the eyes this week?

Then we dove into Acts 8 and heard about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch who sat side-by-side in the chariot studying scripture before going down to the river to pray and wade in the water to be baptized (Acts 8:26-38).  Where and with whom did you sit side-by-side with this week?

Next, we heard about Saul who became Paul, which can help us think about our own name and identity.  Yet this was not some individualistic manifesting or actualizing of self.  Saul becomes Paul through a connection with Ananias.  Ananias found the courage and conviction to go to Saul (who had been hunting and hurting the followers of the Way of Jesus), reached out and touched Saul (just as Peter took the hands of the Beloved by the Beautiful Gate).  It was with that laying on of hands that the scales fell off Saul’s eyes (Acts 9:1-19).  Have any scales fallen from your eyes this week? 

Yesterday, we circled back to Peter, who encountered a vision of a bacon buffet coming down on a blanket (seriously, the Bible is an odd book).  Peter initially doesn’t partake in the festivities, until he realized this wasn’t really about food.  The message and meaning were the way that we treat others as “untouchable” and “unworthy” and less than fully crafted and created in the image of God.  The lightbulb went off in Peter’s sacred imagination and the doorbell rang and there were messengers of Cornelius (who happens to be a military official ~ someone of power and privilege who could have treated others as less than).  This group came to make a connection between Peter and Cornelius.  Who did you connect with last week?

If Acts had a theme song it would be, You’ve Got a Friend in Me from the movie Toy Story.  Or Lean on Me by Bill Withers.  Or the Beatles, With a Little Help from My Friends.  Those songs are going to be stuck on a loop in the jukebox of your mind all day long. 

Who is Peter in your life taking you by the hand, helping you stand when you are not strong?

Who is Philip who sits alongside you praying, laughing, crying, holding silent spaces that are overflowing with meaning more than words could express or evoke?

Who is the Ananias who helps stretch you, causing scales to fall from your eyes, cheering you on as you grow?

Who is Cornelius who shows up, interrupts your circle, in ways that may frustrate and flummox you, but if we preach and teach a God who draws the circle wide, that should impact how we live?

Who are others in your life, both family and friends, that make these passages come to life?  Pay attention today to the people you call, text, meet with, bump into, sit alongside, interact with and whose fingerprints leave an impression on your life.  Notice the other featherless human bipeds who make up this world.  May you find yourself continuing the story of Acts in the chapters of your life this week.  Amen.

Morning Meditation

 

Please pray with me.  God of yesterday that continues to hover and hum in my life today, thank you for the places and people who held me and helped me as a child.  I give thanks for teachers, preachers, parents (biological and adopted), mentors, and guides who shined their light and offered their love.  Thank you for brothers and sisters; friends who became like siblings; pets; addresses where I received my mail; and co-workers who I broke bread with in the break room.  Thank you, God for bumps in the road, some of which still cause me to feel an ache inside.  Thank you for clothing and music and schools where the smell of a #2 pencil brings back memories.  For what was that has led me to what is today, help the story You are authoring in my life continue to be part of what I listen to these days.  Continue to guide me with grace, lead me with love, and remind me that life is not some equation, but a mystery to learn.  In the name of the One who goes with us always, Jesus the Christ.  Amen. 

Summer Reflection

 

I remember my very first job was at Bishop’s Cafeteria.  I started in the dish room pulling piping hot plates off a conveyor belt of an industrial dishwasher.  Every day, I got a facial with the steam and my fingers were wrinkly from constantly being wet.  I would take my earns to the record store ~ remember those ~ to purchase the latest music on cassette tape.  I still remember scoffing when compact discs came out, who would want those?!  Afterall, I’d invested a small fortunate in cassette tapes that looking back seems about as wise as thinking that Beanie Babies would only increase in value!  I clearly should have taken a class in money management earlier in life.  From that first job, I learned about hard work and how to receive feedback.  Eventually, I was “promoted” to washing the floors ~ which came with an extra quarter per hour in pay.  I was living the dream.  Take a moment to recall some of the jobs you’ve had over your life.  What lessons did you take away?  I know my first church taught me so much; I know my second church left imprints on me too; I know the church and people I serve now are continuing to deepen my education daily.  I don’t think I will ever consider myself an “expert” in my field.  Do you remember co-workers and bosses?  Can you see faces and hear their voices?  What ways did your jobs shape you in healthy ways and what hurts still need to be processing that pain? 

 

I pray the work of your hands, hearts, head, and whole life from the past might open you to the ways God was at work in your life and continues to guide you in how/when/where you still show up today to be part of the on-going work of the realm of God. Amen

Summer meditation

 

As we are leaning in and listening to the story/stories that contributed to the recipe of your life, it can evoke and provoke feelings of frustration about ourselves and others.  Many of us think, “Shouldn’t I be further along by now?”  Never mind we might not be clear on where we are going or who exactly is measuring the supposed progress.  In Systems Theory, there is a helpful reminder that you cannot control the weather pattern in another person’s soul.  At best you can only try to understand, observe, be aware and awake to the weather in our own soul.  What are you feeling today?  Maybe you’ve realized that one of the messages you received as a youth was to push down your emotions, that you were not given permission to feel what you felt then and still believe you cannot feel your feelings today.  This can be complex and contradictory.  We can feel both love and ache from people we love.  We can say, at the same time, “They did the best they could.  And I wished it would have been different.”  All this is true.  God holds your story with all its blessings and bruises.  We will get to the most difficult questions of why God didn’t intervene or interrupt the moments of brokenness, why pain is part of life, and why God doesn’t swoop in and save us.  (Spoiler alert ~ we don’t know…but humans still want to state confidently that we figured this out.)   The truth is that others wound us and love us.  God invites us to feel this (Psalm 42:7 says, “Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.”).  God isn’t afraid of emotions; God enters what we carry.  The truth is that sometimes we keep attending to the pain as the fuel that feeds our lives in unhelpful ways.  Rob Bell recently said, “There are moments you keep punching yourself in the face and then looking for the fist.”  I know it is a bit startling of a statement, but the image will stick with you.  Today, be honest about the heartbreak in your life, those sharp shards of life that didn’t work out according to your planning and plotting.  You may want to write these down.  Then, let the depth of your soul be held in the depth of God’s unconditional and unceasing love.  Amen.

Summer meditation

 

Yesterday, you leapt into your DeLorean of a life to rewind, review, and remember the places, spaces, and people that first left fingerprints on your life.  I especially encouraged you to think about the messages and meaning that you made and still carry in the luggage of your soul today.   We are shaped by the past no matter how many candles are on your birthday cake.  I am curious about the most difficult part of your childhood as well as the best part.

 

The most difficult moment I can remember is my dad losing his job when I was in elementary school.  This set him on a course of changing careers and our family needing to move when I was in middle school.  There was a tension within me that while society preached, “Just work hard and you’ll get ahead,” this wasn’t the lived reality in my life.  Instead, I was taught and told about forces that made life difficult, bosses that demanded and demeaned people, and that sometimes despite your best effort the pink slip still comes.  Such uncertainty shaped me and continues to stir within me.  The best part of growing up were friends who I played basketball with in their driveways and listened to music that I am sure my parents would not have approved of if they only knew.  This was the era of government saying that music was corrupting youth ~ which only made the melodies sweeter to our ears.  I remember concerts my friends and I would attend, the State Fair each year and the smell of grease that lingered in the air and navigating adolescence together. 

 

Our Sacred Conversations on Race group is reading Sho Baraka’s book, He saw That It Was Good.   In the book, Baraka writes, “As part of our growth, we all must begin question the stories we were given about ourselves, about the world, about God.  We must compare what we’ve inherited with the stories Jesus told about a humanity being redeemed.  What does your tribe say about the poor?  What does it say about sex and relationships?  Whether you come from a conservative village or a progressive metropolis, odds are that you have assumptions about your narrative.  How might those assumptions be shaping your creative life right now?  How might they be imprisoning you?  And most importantly – how do they compare with God’s image in you.  Many of us are blind to the storytelling we do as we travel through our personal narrative arc.  The decisions we make communicate our beliefs about the world, but do we see the story?  What is the story I am telling with my life and work?”

 

When did your life reflect the great Dickens’ line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” growing up?  Again, I would love to hear these stories!!  May God who holds all that was, is, and will be in your life be found as you flip back through the photo albums of life ~ seeing the black and white moments as well as the grainy first colored Polaroid pictures too.  Amen.  

Summer Meditation

 

Jesus called the disciples back. “Let these children alone. Don’t get between them and me. These children are the kingdom’s pride and joy. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” (Luke 18:16-17).

 

On Mother’s Day in worship, we heard the words above of Jesus inviting us to embrace the fullness of our child-like wonder, awe, curiosity.  And with Father’s Day yesterday, it is appropriate to circle back to these invitational, important words.  Remember there is a distinction between being childish (which is throwing temper tantrums when we don’t get our way, hurting others without regard, and wanting to be the center of the universe.  If you think, “When do adults act that way?”  I present Exhibit A ~ social media and I will rest my case).  Truth is, that we can act childish in church too ~ we can threaten to take away our membership, participation, funding if we don’t get our way.  There is a way to stand up for values, without issuing ultimatums.  On Sunday, I talked about the containers of our life.  There is the story you tell yourself.  This story was not created in a vacuum, but there are forces that shaped you and shaded the way you understand the world.  To start with, think back to your childhood ~ did you live with both your parents or one parent or your grandparents?  Who were the family members that you interacted with most frequently?  Where did you live ~ in the country or city?  How might the soil of that place still be in your soul?

 

I grew up with both my parents, my brother, and my material grandmother who lived with us.  My grandma Griem often watched my brother and I while my parents were at work.  I remember being close to my grandma.  She wore a dress and apron every day.  She had shelves of plants that grew in the big bay window of our dining room and her rocker that sat right next to that indoor green space.  She and I would watch “All My Children,” every single day when I wasn’t in school.  Looking back, perhaps not exactly the best viewing for an impressionable young lad.  My uncle and aunt lived nearby; we saw them at least one a week ~ usually at church.  Otherwise, we didn’t have a large extended family.  Growing up in Iowa, that left a lingering impression on me.  The green beans, grapes, carrots, tomatoes, and radishes we harvested from the garden in the backyard nourished my body and shaped my soul.  I grew up having to “earn my keep,” something that continues to linger (sometimes in unhelpful ways) in the back of my mind. 

 

I wonder, what stories of your childhood are starting to awaken in the cobwebbed corners of your soul?  What is inside that box labeled, “childhood memories” that you have not opened for years?  Take time today to look back on the people, places, messages, events and experiences that formed and fashioned you.  As always, I would love to hear the life lessons that still ring true from the place you first called, “home”.  May God, whose first, last, and middle name for you is, “Beloved,” be with you as you climb in the time capsule called, “your life” today. 

Friday Prayer

 

God, we sing to You today that morning has broken, and we pray our minds/hearts/souls/life would stay on Jesus from morning to night.  We offer You praise that Your blessings are new and renewed each day.  We know that worship is more than one hour on Sunday morning.  We wonder how we can worship in the wayless way we wander through in this wilderness of today.  We pray that we would find moments of care in a harsh, hostile world where fear too often is our go to response, where anger is the filter we force every word and action through.  Let Your loving kindness be encountered and expressed for us, through us, in us.  We pray for ways we might draw the circle wider, maybe just a half-a-millimeter in one small corner of the circle.  And we pray, O God, that You would help us accept others as You accept us.  Empower us to engage in this prayerful work.  We pray that we will know we belong and are welcomed by You so that we can in turn offer expressions to those who cross our path this day.  Help us find ways to do Your will, to be salt that adds zest/spice to life and light that shines bright.  And remind us that just as we are not the same person as we were back on January 14, 2024, nor is anyone else.  We are all in process.  Some are moving forward, some are stuck and stymied, some want to go backwards.  Help us realize that telling others what do to rarely works, O God, because when was the last time we welcomed such commentary on our lives?  In this beautiful, broken, God-soaked world, help us find ways to be Your people individually and collectively as my story, our story, and Your story continually evolve and new chapters are written.  Amen.  

Focus on Core Values Part 4

 

This week we are letting our Core Values sing to our souls.  I’ve invited you to both find space to think, write, and share your own definitions of Worship, Caring, Welcome, Belonging, Justice, and Faithfulness ~ as well as find conversation partners with whom you can hear a different description of these words. 

 

In the Book of Acts, we hear how at Pentecost there was a worship experience that changed the hearts and lives of people.  After Pentecost the early followers of Jesus settled into an ordinary rhythm of breaking bread, praising God, and caring for each other.  People shared the resources they had with each other.  This is an expression of caring.  Peter and John cared about the beloved son who was sitting by the Beautiful Gate asking him to look them in the eyes ~ they saw each other.  This is caring and welcome.  The beloved Ethiopian welcomed Philip into the chariot and Philip offered the gift of belonging to the Ethiopian.  When we work for healing and expanding the boundaries of God’s expansive love, this is justice.  In the coming weeks, we will hear how Peter sees a vision of a buffet of forbidden food ~ of pork chops cooked in bacon-grease (see meditation from Tuesday for that odd reference).  Initially, Peter was like, “Oh no, Lord, I would never, ever let such food touch my lips” ~ even as his mouth watered.  Peter eventually understood that God is asking him to grow for the sake of another ~ or ~ faithfulness.  To be sure, it is not only Acts where our Core Values find scriptural support.  In Ruth, she ministers to Naomi with caring and unconditional love.  Jesus welcomes the children and invites us to do the same.  Paul says that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile; male or female; servant or free ~ we all belong.  Isaiah worships and sings with seraphim, “Holy, Holy, Holy”.  Micah 6 proclaims a way justice and Hebrews 11 says faith is the reality of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen, talk about a contradiction!!  I pray you are thinking of passages of scripture where our Core Values are hiding in plain sight connecting us to a BIGGER story that goes back thousands of years.  This is where my story, our story, and God’s story all converge and connect in holy ways.  Amen.

Focus on Core Values Part 3

 

This week we are playfully and prayerfully exploring our Core Values of Worship, Caring, Welcome, Belonging, Justice, and Faithfulness.  Yesterday, I offered you my descriptions and definitions of these words.  Then, I invited you to share your ideas and insights with me.  I meant this.  What we are doing here is moving from the “my story” space to the “our story” space.  Where does your definition and description fit with what I wrote?  Where do we have some distance or difference or dissonance?  Note, this doesn’t have to be a “bad” thing.  Think of music, where there is dissonance that makes the music more interesting and engaging, catches your attention.  I encourage you to keep excavating examples of our Core Values from your life and from shared experiences.  When has worship moved you?  When has Sunday morning caused you to yawn?  Both can be informative and have something to say.  When have you felt most deeply loved and cared for, when have you felt pushed to the fringe and fray?  This might also say something about welcome and belonging in your life.  Where do you feel can you be most fully yourself and where do you feel the need to wear a mask?  The truth is that I can feel both at the same time.  I feel like I can be myself as your pastor AND that this role has expectations that people project ~ both consciously and unconsciously.  I long for a world where I can be salt and light.  And at the same time realize and recognize that one grain of salt, one flashlight is not as powerful as a handful of salt and twelve flashlights.  Justice is not an isolated, individual sport.  I love the saying that “individual Christian” is an oxymoron and a contradiction.  Justice longs for connection in its expression.  Justice is built on a foundation of belonging, trying to expand that space for all to find welcome and caring.  Finally, I believe faith is a verb, longing for endless exploration.  Faith is not something that can be captured in a single Creed, although words can be helpful in giving directions.  Faith is evolving and expanding and elastic ~ sometimes I need faith to stretch in new directions and sometimes I need faith to contract for comfort.  For example, I love singing new songs and I love the classic hymns I’ve sung for years.  Both give expressions to what is in my soul.  I pray these words above have sparked and stirred your soul to find some conversation partners and start talking AND listening to each other ~ I pray you will let loose places where “your story” finds an “our story” can feed each other in these days.  Amen.

Focus on Core Values Part 2

 

This week, we are letting our Core Values as a church help us explore, express, and experience our individual stories, our shared stories, and the story of God’s work in the world.  Yesterday, I asked you to think of definitions, descriptions, and examples of our six Core Values:

 

Worship, Caring, Welcome, Belonging, Justice, and Faithfulness.

 

For me, worship is an encounter with the Eternal.  This can happen in the sanctuary as we sing the hymn, Perpetual Praise about God’s many blessings that are new each morning.  Worship happens outside when I notice the vast variety of colors our Creator paints within creation.  Worship happens around kitchen tables during pastoral visits and in Bible Study and drumming circles and writing these morning meditations.  Worship is not confined to a building with walls and a steeple.  When have you felt your soul surge and stirred to offer God prayer and praise?

 

For me, caring is an encounter of God’s love that never lets me go.  Steve Cuss talks about the experience gap.  That we believe in God’s unconditional, unceasing love, but we don’t always experience this love or think ourselves worthy of such love.  That is, we talk about God’s love as though it was theoretical rather than experiential.  Caring puts flesh, breath, and bone ~ caring is an embodied experience that moves from the head to the heart.  There is so much talk today about self-care, which is important.  I believe that you should not say something to yourself that you would not say to a friend; to keep being awake to how we let our inner critic berate and belittle us.  For me, the most powerful experiences of care come from another.  A hug, a smile, words of affection and affirmation, moments I feel seen and heard for who I am, these are all ways threads of care sewn into my life.

 

Welcome echoes care.  I love the definition that welcome is a ‘wished for guest’ (Lucy Finn Borgo).  Welcome is not just about opening the door with a smile plastered on your face and some crackers/cheese put out on the table but feeling truly wanted in a place.  I feel welcomed into people’s homes who make me feel like family.  I feel welcomed into people’s hearts who sometimes say what I am feeling better than I can express.  Welcome is a bit like trying to hold sand, words slip through my fingers trying to define/describe it.  The best experience of welcome was my wife’s grandmother.  When my wife and I were dating, her grandmother invited us for a meal.  At the time, I was a vegetarian.  So, her grandmother made every vegetable she could think of!  I am talking green beans, corn, broccoli, carrots, and potatoes.  Oh, and she made pork cooked in bacon grease, because it wasn’t beef.  That was the day I stopped being a vegetarian ~ because pork cooked in bacon grease is delicious, and because I felt welcomed!

The above story is also an example of belonging, a moment I felt seen and heard and loved.  Belonging is something we all long for in a world where we are more connected than ever via the internet ~ and feel more alone than ever too ~ what a complex contradiction!  I feel a sense of belonging when I say to you all at communion, “There is a place set for all of you at Christ’s table and plenty of room to spare.”  You are welcome, wanted, and belong to One who calls you by name. 

 

Justice for me about showing up and speaking up.  I also think that justice today can be a double edge sword that we just keep fighting the “other”.  We want our way, our views validated, so we find an advisory ~ which is easy to do in a diverse world where everyone has a platform.  So, we craft/create “us” verses “them” narratives.  We blast out emails and evidence that if “they” win, all goes to hell in a handbasket.  And we refuse and refute any nuance.  We keep an internal score card.  And the heartbreaking truth is that we constantly think we are losing regardless of which side we are on.  Listen to our politicians.  Listen to your favorite sports team ~ they are always the underdog.  Listen to a friend who sees only the negative and less than as they drive away in a new car.  We are so complex and contradictory.  Justice, God’s justice, is about opening a capricious space where we are not in control and charge, where hierarchy, win-lose narratives, and scapegoating no longer make sense.  God’s justice is about showing loving kindness to others and walking humbly with God. 

 

Finally, faithfulness is growing in the image of God for the sake of another.  I grow not just for my own isolated Enlightenment-self or to show you how brilliant I am; I grow because worship, care, belonging, justice, and welcome are always pushing at my boundaries – just as the friendship between the Ethiopian and Philip.  I grow through reading, writing, talking, sitting quietly with God’s still soft voice, walking in Creation that grows in the dirt and stardust, sun and moon light that nourishes my soul. 

 

I pray these definitions of these words have helped you.  Now, I would love to hear your descriptions, definitions, and examples from this mid-point of the year.  Amen.

Focus on Core Values

 

Throughout the month of June, we have centered our hearts and opened our sacred imaginations to the stories in the Book of Acts.  We have already heard about the burning breeze of the Spirit that infused, inspired, and interrupted the lives of the earliest followers of Jesus.  We heard how the Spirit awoke a unity in diversity ~ how the disciples convened a United Nations-like meeting of many languages and could understand each other.  This shined and shed light on how we long to be heard and seen and understood.  Today open yourself to how you long to find a connection in your communication.  We name the irony that we are more connected via the computer in our pocket and purse, but still feel disconnected and distant.  The sweet, sweet Spirit swirled, stirred, and surged sending forth the disciples into the world.  Two weeks ago, we heard how Peter and John saw a beloved son of God ~ looked him in the eyes ~ as a way to healing.  Yesterday, we heard on Philip put on his running shoes to come up alongside a chariot, hopped in, and taught an Ethiopian eunuch about the liberating love of God.  I love the question of the eunuch, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?”  And the answer in Philip’s heart was…nothing.  I don’t know why the church continues to find ways to put up barriers and blockades about who participates and part-takes in worship.  I don’t know why we feel the need to check your baptismal certificate and make sure your beliefs are neat and tidy ~ because our experiences and encounters in this life will always push at the boundaries of faith.  Many have observed that Christian has become “Americanized” adopting and adapting the ways of commercialization and individualization that are part of the sea we swim in culturally.  If we don’t like the church we are in, we “shop” for another that meets our needs. 

 

What holds us together?  I encourage you to ponder prayerfully what connects us and creates community for you.  Years ago, it was a shared address.  You were connected to family and neighbors who lived within walking distance.  You rarely traveled very far.  For many, what created community, connection to others, was your job.  You shared a kin-ship with other pastors or factor workers or farmers or lawyers.  But eventually, we have questioned whether meaning in our lives comes from our paycheck?  And when our families are scattered across the globe and people are isolated now working from home, what creates community today?  I would suggest that one thread that can tether us together is a shared story.  Richard Rohr talks about three stories that need to fit together like Russian nesting dolls.  You have “my” story ~ how I see myself.  Then, there is “our” story.  This could be the one that comes from friends or your hobby or people you enjoy hanging out with.  Then there is the story, the one that is larger to hold the multiplicity and multi-vocal parts of a diverse world. 

 

This week, I want to explore how our Core Values can help us find a shared story that connects us to each other.  To remind you our Core Values at the church are: 

 

Worship, Caring, Welcome, Belonging, Justice, and Faithfulness.

 

I invite you today to write down a definition or an example of each from a moment you shared with others.  I encourage you to think about a time worship in community opened you to encountering the Eternal; a time you cared for and received care from another; a moment you felt welcomed and wanted by others (who showed the acceptance and affirmation); describe a place and space you feel like you belong; a way you work with God for justice for siblings on the fringe and fray; and how faithfulness is enlivened and embodied in shared study (like Philip and the beloved Ethiopian engaged in the story yesterday).  This may take a minute.  This may take the rest of the week or even month, and this is okay.  There is no due date or finish line, this is an open invitation to let these words rummage and roam around your life to find expression as you move about your days, interacting with others.  Amen.

Friday Prayer

 

Salty, savoring, flavoring, flourishing, flowing, running, resting, guiding God, your Holiness hovers, and hums in the hymnal of our life.  We long to sing Your songs of justice but sometimes we can overanalyze or criticize the tune and words of the hymn, especially if it is not to our liking!  We confess that sometimes we confuse our agenda with Yours.  We get wrapped up in our way or the highway, rather than slowing down to let Your holiness guide us.  We are caught up in racing and running toward a finish line where we have “achieved” Your realm; without realizing that this on-going, unfolding work may or may not be complete in our life.  And the deeper, more unsettling truth is, we may not be complete/whole/full of shalom in this life.  Let us hold the beautiful tension of melodies that from Monday sang out the truth that You are immortal and invisible ~ unseen and unknown ~ You are the Holy Other.  Yet, You also guide us and move within us in life-giving ways.  Help us get caught up in Your symphony this day, playing our part, singing our notes, and realizing there are measures rest too.  Help us listen to You each moment this day in beautiful/brave/bold ways.  Amen. 

Singing Scripture

 

In the Gospel of Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

 

What is adding flavor to your life right now?  What is adding zest?  What are you savoring as you taste the goodness of life?  I encourage you to hold these questions during the month of June and at the end of each week as yourself, where did you taste, sense, smell, encounter the saltiness of God?  For me, I tasted God’s salt on vacation when I was able to relax and breathe and be.  I tasted God’s salt having my kids home for summer, getting to see them each day (if only for a few minutes).  I tasted God’s salt in worship as we sing our prayer and praise.  I taste God’s goodness in conversations with you ~ you are a blessing.  I think of a newer hymn by Marty Haugen, slowly read these words ~ savoring what is provoked and evoked in these sentences:

 

You are salt for the earth, O People, Salt for The Kingdom of God!
Share the flavor of Life, O People: Life in The Kingdom of God!

Bring forth the Kingdom of Mercy, bring forth the Kingdom of Peace;
Bring forth the Kingdom of Justice, bring forth The City of God!

 

You are a seed of the Word, O People, bring forth The Kingdom of God!
Seeds of mercy and seeds of Justice, grow in The Kingdom of God!

Bring forth the Kingdom of Mercy, Bring forth the Kingdom of Peace;
Bring forth the Kingdom of Justice, Bring forth The City of God!

 

We are a blessed and a pilgrim People, bound for The Kingdom of God!
Love our journey and love our homeland: Love is The Kingdom of God!

Bring forth the Kingdom of Mercy, Bring forth the Kingdom of Peace;
Bring forth the Kingdom of Justice, Bring forth The City of God!

 

I pray today you will find ways to be salty.  I pray you will share the flavor of God with others who cross your path, that you will express mercy and love and be part of God’s work.  I pray you will let seeds of the sacred grow in the soil of your soul.  I pray you will give thanks for the companions on the road of life.  In fact, right now, name family and friends and fellow church members who you are traveling with you and who share light with you.  And may the love of God infuse and inspire your life and your song today!  Amen.